Camp Bailout offers girls strength, confidence

Wednesday

Jul 12, 2017 at 7:53 PMJul 12, 2017 at 8:44 PM

Alison Bosma abosma@wickedlocal.com @AlisonBosma

SOUTHBOROUGH - Adriana Paulhus inched across a wire suspended between two trees, watching her teammates for cues, and pausing as one person carefully took the slack out of the rope she held for balance.

“They have to work together,” Ashland Fire Lt. Lyn Moraghan pointed out. “The big thing (the instructor) is working on with them is communication.”

Nine girls navigated the ropes course together at Fay School Wednesday, each simultaneously balancing and helping her teammates. The exercise was part of Camp Bailout, an annual five-day firefighter training camp for girls, free for campers and funded with about $2,500 from Ashland.

The camp’s program is different every year. Campers this year also drove rescue boats, and visited UMass Memorial Medical Center to meet a medical helicopter crew and see their dispatch center in action. Later in the week, they’ll learn self-defense.

The program, now in its seventh year, was originally intended to increase the number of female firefighters and EMTs, but that’s no longer the chief goal, Moraghan said.

“It’s to encourage the girls to have confidence in themselves, and to realize their career choices are endless,” Moraghan said.

Isabella Thurber, 15, of Bellingham, back for her second year, is motivated to become a firefighter. She said the lack of women in the profession spurred her on, and she joined Foxborough Fire Explorer Post – formerly Junior Firefighters of Foxborough, and a division of the Boy Scouts - to further her career goal.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, women made up just 3.5 percent of the nation’s firefighters in 2016.

“Probably because they see so many men doing it, so they don’t think women can do it,” Thurber said. “If you work hard, and you have the courage to do it, and be the only girl, then you can do it.”

Moraghan said she tries to introduce the campers to as many female role models as possible. Campers have met female firefighters, police officers, nurses, a state DCR employee, and this week, a flight nurse, freshly returned to work from maternity leave. Female firefighters also make up some of the camp's volunteer staff.

“I had strong women role models my whole life,” Wellesley firefighter Joanie Cullinan said at the ropes course Wednesday. “I think it’s important for these guys to see the same.”

Hopedale’s Abby Kelly, 14, had an opportunity to put her new training to work almost immediately when she and her mother drove past a decorative lamppost that had caught fire Tuesday morning. Campers had just learned about different classes of fires and how to tackle each.

Kelly’s mother pulled the car over, called the fire department, and the two raced to tell the resident. He came out with a bucket of water and threw it on the flames.

“My mom said, ‘It didn’t put the fire out,’ and I said ‘That’s because he didn’t put it at the base of the fire,’” Kelly remembered. She also made sure the resident turned off the electricity to the lamppost. “I was kind of surprised I actually knew something.”

Applications for the camp are usually available by April, Moraghan said, and campers have to be at least 14 years old. Camp is capped at 16 girls.